Crafting in this Gig Economy

Posted by Citizen Decor on October 18th, 2019

This gig economy is a substantive way for a lot of people today to make not only a side income but in some situations a full time income. In many ways, this is one manifestation of a concept that has been around for a while called microfinance. Microfinance historically has been a very successful strategy for lifting women out of poverty in third world countries. 

The fundamentals of microfinance are based on a few key assumptions. One, that women are more reliable and social. They hold each other accountable and are more likely to succeed together. Two, it enables these individuals not only to just feed their families but to do so in a meaningful and sustainable manner. Being independent and self employed has a host of benefits.

There are elements of microfinance in today gig economy, just not in the typical ways one might think. Most people think of driving uber or upworks outsourcing work or even grocery delivery services when they think of side jobs in this gig economy. These are all great but they are very male oriented jobs. There is this other cohort of people with completely different interests and ways of working. These people are women. 

One a heavily dominated women dominated area is home making and crafts. Ironically, the gig economy has infiltrated even this corner of society. People are making and selling small crafts and home goods as a way to make some side money. There are numerous facebook groups dedicated to women crafting together, sharing ideas and encouraging each other in this field.

Perhaps this is the modern day manifestation of microfinance applied to shift an entire gender cohort in a social economic demographic that has not seen much movement in the past couple of decades. 

A personal cutting machine called the Cricut became very popular a few years ago. The most profitable cricut businesses today focus on localized customized small scale handmade crafts.  

If you are unfamiliar with the Cricut, it is a cutting machine that has taken over the crafting work. Not only do you not have to have any technical abilities, you don’t even really need artistic skills or vision for that matter. It comes with thousands of designed projects that you just have to “send to cut” with your machine. I personally can’t draw but it doesn’t matter, my machine can do it for me with someone else’s design. Beginner projects for the Cricut look like professional level art. It is addicting to use. If you are interested in getting started with the Cricut, here are a bunch of free SVG files for the Cricut.

The best part about the Cricut is really how professional looking the end results are. I make these rolled paper flowers with paper flower templates I designs in an image editor and they sell for a lot of money on Etsy. With the Cricut, we have now enabled a bunch of people who previously had no artistic or technical skills making professional grade products to sell in their local communities and across the country for that matter. This might be the new resurgence of manufacturing in America - the micro-manufacturing gig-economy. Wow, that is a mouthful.